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Introduction
Formulating a convincing strategy is essential for the long-term success of any organization. Transparency about these strategies is recognized by leaders and coworkers alike, but also demanded by stockholders and stakeholders, as they determine the course and direction of a company. Accordingly, the strategy has long been an indispensable concept in the management literature.
However, when it comes to communicating strategic corporate goals and measures to key internal and external stakeholders, communication and PR scholars have seldom highlighted the importance of these activities. The result is a lack of well-founded theoretical and empirical research in this area. This is quite astonishing, as one of the few explicit notions of the importance and necessity of communications in management research is linked to corporate strategies (Aaltonen and Ikävalko, 2002; Kaplan and Norton, 2001). This is because corporate strategies can be effective only if they are well understood by employees and taken into account in their daily activities (Kaplan and Norton, 2008; Yang et al., 2011). Likewise, the attribution of legitimacy and the support of policy makers, administrators and other stakeholders often depend on the plausibility of a company’s strategic positioning. And obviously investors rely on information about the company’s strategic course when evaluating businesses (Hoffmann and Fieseler, 2012; Kuperman, 2002). Their decisions are strongly influenced by confidence in the communicated visions and plans – shareholders will remain invested in listed corporations only if they have trust in their future development.
External and internal strategy communication is therefore of central importance for corporations and stakeholders alike. Any corporate strategy, whether it has been deliberately planned or emerged from organizational practices (Winkler and Etter, 2018), needs to be supported by those who are in charge of operationalizing these strategies, by those who support business processes or profit from them, and by those who shape regulative and normative frameworks (the “license to operate”). The ultimate responsibility for fulfilling these expectations can be attributed to top management. But communication practitioners play an important role as they (should) know how to identify stakeholder needs and media usage, internal facts and priorities and suitable communication channels and formats. Communication practitioners can convey and multiply strategies internally to ensure a better understanding of strategies across all functions (Zerfass and Volk, 2018). However,...